Notes on Grant Morrison and company's DC megacrossover and its roots and shoots. Spoilers ahoy.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Schedule and contest

A few notes on what exactly I'm doing here:

I'll be annotating FINAL CRISIS and all its direct tie-ins as they're released or as pages are made public. I will update entries in this blog as new information becomes available, or to correct the errors I will surely be making. If you have additional information or corrections not covered here, please leave a message in the comments or email me at finalcrisis [at-sign-goes-here] douglaswolk period com.

For the sake of history, here are the originally solicited shipping dates (and announced-but-not-yet-solicited release dates) for all directly FINAL CRISIS-related titles:

July 9: FC: REQUIEM (Peter Tomasi/Doug Mahnke/Christian Alamy one-shot)--released 7/9July 16: FC: ROGUES' REVENGE #1 (Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins; not originally intended to be part of FC, but this interview explains how it got gerrymandered in)--released 7/16July 30: FC #3 (Morrison/Jones)--bumped to 8/6 as of July 9; released 8/6

September 10: FC: REVELATIONS #2 (Rucka/Tan/de los Santos/Glapion)--released 9/10September 17: FC #4 (Morrison/Jones/Carlos Pacheco)--bumped to 10/1 as of Aug. 19; bumped again to 10/15 as of Sep. 3; bumped yet again to 10/22 as of Sep. 19; released 10/22September 17: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #2 (Johns/Pérez/Koblish)--bumped to 10/1 as of Aug. 19; bumped again to 10/15 as of Sep. 3; released 10/15September 17: FC: ROGUES' REVENGE #3 (Johns/Kolins)--bumped to 10/15 as of Aug. 19; released 10/15

October 1: FC: SUBMIT (Morrison/Matthew Clark/Norm Rapmund one-shot)--bumped to 10/8 as of Sep. 6; bumped again to 10/15 as of Sep. 15; bumped yet again to 10/22 as of Sep. 19; released 10/22October 8: FC: REVELATIONS #3 (Rucka/Tan/de los Santos/Glapion)--released 10/8October 15: FC: RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS (Johns/Shane Davis/Sandra Hope one-shot)--bumped to 10/29 as of Oct. 8; released 10/29October 22: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #3 (Johns/Pérez/Koblish)--bumped to 12/3 as of Sep. 6; bumped again to 1/14 as of Oct. 29; bumped yet again to 1/21 as of Dec. 2; bumped still again to 1/28 as of Dec. 26; bumped a further time to 2/11 as of Jan. 5, but then pushed up to 2/4 as of Jan. 23; released 2/4October 22: FC: RESIST (Greg Rucka/Eric Trautmann/Ryan Sook one-shot)--bumped to 10/29 as of Sep. 6; bumped again to 11/5 as of Oct. 15; released 11/5October 29: FC #5 (Morrison/Jones/Pacheco)--bumped to 11/26 as of Sep. 19; bumped again to 12/3 as of Nov. 7; bumped yet again to 12/10 as of Nov. 19; released 12/10

November 12: FC: REVELATIONS #4 (Rucka/Tan/Glapion)--bumped to 11/26 as of Oct. 22; bumped again to 12/10 as of Oct. 29; released 12/10November 12: BATMAN #682 (Morrison/Garbett)--a FC tie-in--bumped to 11/19 as of Oct. 8; bumped again to 12/4 as of Oct. 22; released 12/4November 26: FC #6 (Morrison/Jones/Pacheco/Merino)--bumped to 12/31 as of Sep. 19; bumped again to 1/14 as of Dec. 2; released 1/14November 26: BATMAN #683 (Morrison/Garbett)--a FC tie-in--bumped to 12/3 as of Oct. 8; bumped again to 12/17 as of Oct. 22; bumped yet again to 12/24 as of Dec. 2; released 12/24

December 24: FC: SECRET FILES #1 (Morrison/Tomasi/Frank Quitely et al.)--announced Sep. 13; bumped to 1/2 as of Dec. 12; released 1/2December 24: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #4 (Johns/Pérez/Koblish)--bumped to 2/25 as of Nov. 7; bumped again to 3/25 as of Jan. 23December 31: FC: REVELATIONS #5 (Rucka/Tan/Glapion)--bumped to 1/14 as of Nov. 19; bumped again to 1/21 as of Dec. 2; bumped yet again to 1/28 as of Dec. 26; released 1/28

January 14: FC: SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 (Morrison/Mahnke/Alamy)--announced May 17; bumped to 1/21 as of Dec. 26; released 1/21January 28: FC #7 (Morrison/Mahnke/Alamy); released 1/28 (on schedule, believe it or not)

March 25: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #5 (Johns/Pérez/Koblish); bumped to 5/13 as of Feb. 4, which means that this project will officially have gone on for an entire year

The remaining schedule, as it currently stands:

March 25: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #4May 13: FC: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #5

As of April 30, there were 7 issues of FINAL CRISIS and 23 additional tie-in comics on the schedule. Here's my three-part contest:

1) How many issues of additional FINAL CRISIS tie-ins will be announced after April 30 but before the end of the series? 2) Which will be the first issue of FINAL CRISIS or its associated titles to be released later than its scheduled ship week? 3) When will the final issue of FINAL CRISIS be released?

Leave your guesses in the comments. I'll accept guesses for each of these until, let's say, June 25, since I am fairly sure that FC #2 is finished. Closest guess on each gets a special prize. [This contest is now closed.]

[As of May 17, DC UNIVERSE: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, FC #1: DIRECTOR'S CUT SPECIAL and FC: SUPERMAN BEYOND #2 had all been added to the schedule. On Sep. 13, FC: SECRET FILES #1 was added.]

19 comments:

1) How many issues of additional FINAL CRISIS tie-ins will be announced after April 30 but before the end of the series?10 - 1 more issue of Final Crisis, plus 3 one shots and 1 3-issue mini and a 3-issue aftermath.

2) Which will be the first issue of FINAL CRISIS or its associated titles to be released later than its scheduled ship week?Final Crisis 3 will miss by a week because they can fudge since there's no issue in August, but one of the August books will have a reveal that spoils something.

Can we confirm whether 'aftermath' books count for the first question? Aren't they usually given different headings? (e.g. "Decimation" vs. "House of M", or "Initiative" vs. "Civil War" - I know both those examples are Marvel, but I still think it's a relevant point)

Sean--good to see you here too! As for "Batman RIP," all I can say is yikes: I was hoping I could find somebody else who could annotate it! Morrison seems to be drawing heavily on the '50s/'60s era of Batman stories, most of which I've never read. So the Michael Fleischer Batman Encyclopedia that DC just reprinted a few months ago is sort of helpful for pointing in the right direction (its final entry is Zur-En-Arrh)... but I'm at sea too.

The last panel would appear to be a black lantern; we don't know anything more about that yet either.

What we know is what was established at the end of the "Sinestro Corps" conflict : that the black lantern houses the power of (or is made from) the Anti-Monitor, whose essence was drawn and trapped here by a yet unrevealed third party, soon after his "destruction".

I'm not sure if Last Will and Testament really counts, since it doesn't feature the Final Crisis branding, even if it's related to the story - it's the same deal with JLA 21 (which is a "sightings" tie-in) and things get WAY heavier when we add Dark Side Club tie-ins, like this week's upcoming Birds of Prey and Flash. I'm sure there's a reason it's not labeled Final Crisis: Last Will and Testament, since that'd probably sell better anyway.

1) One, not counting unofficial tie-ins such as JLA #21 and Last Will and Testament, which are more stories that occur around FC than parts of FC themselves. And not counting Superman Beyond #2, the split in which was announced after April 30.2) Final Crisis #53) January 2009

Doug said:Might be hairsplitting, but I'm counting "Last Will" as a direct tie-in because it's got the three-vertical-columns cover design. I don't quite get why it doesn't have the FC brand on it either.

Me:It's not really the 3-vertical-columns, it seems to be sort of using that motif to show that it's covering the periphery of the event (I'd expect the cover text to be in the middle). The reason I think it didn't get the FC treatment is that the overall tie-in count seems to be vetted by Grant Morrison, and maybe he didn't want what's likely to be 32 pages of crying associated with the mega-story. (Johns, Tomasi and Rucka/by extension Trautmann are all established collaborators; I know Morrison expressed dismay with Identity Crisis one or two times.)

Crisis After Crisis

About Me

I write about pop music and comic books for a lot of places. My book "Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean" was published by Da Capo in 2007; my book "Live at the Apollo" was published by Continuum in 2004.